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All posts for the month January, 2011

This is some good stuff. This is one of those items that can be made for breakfast, lunch or supper.

Here you go.

Ingredients

2 1/2 pounds of red potatoes or as many as you like. More if you decide to make this after church or on game day.

3-4 tablespoons of olive oil. This is to make sure the potatoes do not stick to your baking pan.

1 large onion or 2 small or 3 if you want. I like onions so more does not bother me.

1 tablespoon of steak seasoning. I use store bought and I don’t measure.

2 tablespoons of paprika. I don’t measure this either.

How to make it.

Set the oven to 500 degrees

Everybody in the pool. Rough cut the potatoes and put them in the baking dish. Rough cut onions and put them in the baking dish. Pour on the olive oil. Add steak seasoning and paprika. If you are feeling wild, throw on some garlic.

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John Owen, the great Puritan theologian, said, “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” That is heavy to think about. Let that weigh on your mind for a few moments.

Once you become a Christian, you are in a war. Your spirit will be fighting against your old sinful desires. Sin is relentless. It will come at you in all sorts of ways. It will come through your actions, thoughts, things you see or hear, temptation. The best way to do this is to realize what you have to help you fight.

You have fellow Christians who are fighting the war with you. Some are actively fighting. Learn from them. Let them come alongside you and fight with you. Let them mentor you. Let them disciple you and train you. This war will last a lot longer than you and I will be alive. Become discipled. Make disciples that make disciples. Be part of the Disciple cycle.

The truth is on your side. The Gospel of Christ. Let it penetrate you to the core of your soul. Let it pierce you and cut out what does not conform you to the image of Christ. Let it influence you in thoughts and actions.

Ephesians 6:10-18 lists out your armor that is designed for your protection.

The belt of truth

breastplate of righteousness

shoes for your feet so that you can run with the message of the Gospel

the shield of faith

the helmet of salvation

There is only one offensive weapon. The sword. The Word of God. In 2011, I like to think of that as a gun. Pull the trigger! Cut down sin before it gets a hold on you.

Do not hesitate. Do not become comfortable. Comfortable leads to complacency. Laziness has no place in a fight. Pull the trigger!

Verse 12 of Ephesians 6 says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

We are in a war. Go hard or go home! Peace comes when Jesus comes to set up the new Jerusalem. Until then, fight. Make war. Pull the trigger!

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I enjoy leading College Students. I am thankful that God allows me to be around such great young adults. Today’s post is a guest post by one of my College students, Nick Morris.

Faith breaker, or Faith enhancer?

The best advice you can give any believer in a time of stress or sadness is “Don’t lose faith, God has a plan.” In the same way, that is the hardest advice to take yourself. There have been many times in my life that I have given that advice to a friend or family member. I said it with so much confidence that you would have thought I had just told them to do something as easy as a “color by number”.

I could say it easily because at that time I really could not relate to a situation where “keeping the faith” was an extremely hard thing to do. I had faith that everything that did happen, was supposed to happen which is easy to do when everything is going smoothly. Its when times get hard that your faith is tested.

“For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” James 1:3

I have learned now, through experience, that keeping the faith is a lot easier said than done. When the waters of life are tossing you around like a paper boat, the question is will you allow that situation to enhance your faith, or cause you to lose it completely? We are told that we will never be put in a situation that we cannot handle. (1 Corinthians 10:13) So we should take that as encouragement, because if a situation comes along that seems too big to handle, God knows you better than you know yourself! He knows your measure of faith, He knows the exact difficulty of a situation you need to be put in to be humbled enough to reach out to Him. Its up to you, to seek Him.

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Matt 5:16

There are great examples of faith throughout the bible, and they are a great encouragement to me, but until you act on your own faith, you will never see or feel its effect on your life. I had to take my own advice and act on my faith. Moses’ faith did not get me through a tough situation, my own faith did.

I didn’t waste an opportunity to enhance my faith, my faith was not broken. Don’t allow a situation in your life to go by without using it as an opportunity to grow. If you let it pass, it could very well be wasted pain and who wants that, I certainly don’t.

Nicolas Morris

Nick is a college student at Middle Georgia College in Cochran, Ga. You can follow Nick on Twitter – @nickkmorris

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Our church culture has become too comfortable with church. There are padded seats, air conditioning, carpet. We have made Jesus comfortable for us. We are trying to conform Jesus to our image instead of us being conformed to the image of Jesus. We have held on to grace and mercy and thrown conviction, repentance and the Great Commission out the window.

We should not minimize the Bible the way we minimize our own sin. Sin is very serious. *Computer illustration

The Bible – If you do not have passion for God’s Word, you do not have passion for God. If you do not hunger and thirst for Scripture, you do not hunger and thirst for God. You CANNOT separate God and His Word. You CANNOT love God and not love His Word.

Luke 9:23-26, 57-62

Luke 14:25-33

We have got rid of discipline and we have lost self-control. Jesus is serious about killing sin.

Lust – gouge your eye out. Hand causes you to sin – cut it off.

We do not re-hash or discuss a sermon or even think about it once we the service is over and we have left church. We want to be friends with each other but we do not pray for each other’s spiritual condition.

Take up your cross. Take up your instrument of pain and torture, your instrument of death – your cross. That which is uncomfortable, that which causes pain, suffering, weeping, and carry it with you. Make it a part of you.

Jesus says that our love for him should be so great that it looks like we hate our family.

*child illus.

Jesus’ call to follow him demands total surrender.

Get rid of everything that interferes with your spiritual growth. Everything that keeps you from being fully devoted disciples of Christ.

Luke 12:16-21, 32-34 – *The American Dream

Christ does not make His commands optional. Christ commands obedience.

What is keeping me from total surrender to Christ? What is God telling you to trash, sell, or give away?

The way we use money is a huge indicator of our spiritual condition.

Jesus does not want to rob us of our pleasures but change what we find pleasure in.

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How do you think about God and the Bible? Paul pushes us to set our minds on heaven and take them off of this world.

v1. If you are truly risen with Christ/a disciple – your thoughts/passion should not be of or for this world. If also implies that some people might be deceiving themselves. Some people are not disciples and they lie to themselves and others by saying that they are. Only you and God know for sure.

v2. To seek heavenly things is to set our minds upon them, love them, and let our desires be towards them.

The Bible has a lot to say about the mind, thinking, knowledge, and understanding. Romans 12:2, Matthew 22

There is a tension in our culture. Society would lead you to believe that knowledge and education is separate from faith. Christianity has been called the religion/faith of stupid people.

But – if you are a Christian, something inside of your spirit should rise up against that. Fight the lie.

Whatever you do…do all for the glory of God. God desires that we glorify him in our thinking.

Thinking is wasted if our thoughts are more for our selfish desires than the things of God. How many of our thoughts are distorted, twisted, and perverted? Our thoughts enough could send us to hell just for thinking them if it wasn’t for the blood of Christ.

Knowing this, when your mind is not focused on the things above – You choose the wisdom and knowledge of this world. Your thinking is twisted, your mind is debased and your understanding is darkened. Romans 1:28

“Instead of chasing the truth, you take a lie to the head.” – Lecrae

The Bible also warns of thinking and knowledge that puffs up or leads to pride – that kind of thinking is dangerous because you believe your knowledge and understanding is not from God but of yourself.

Who am I to boast in what I have or what I have done? Who am I to think highly of myself? That type of thinking is misplaced, misguided. Clay has no control over how it will be used or what it will become. Clay has no authority over the Potter.

Hearing/Thinking/Learning – Application = Self deception

God centered thoughts Phil. 4:8

Reading books – especially the Bible – involves serious thinking. To read a book – especially the Bible – w/out thinking is a waste of reading.

“The main reason God has given us minds is that we might seek out and find all the reasons that exist for treasuring him in all things and above all things.” – John Piper.

The mind comprehends (imperfectly and partially but truly) the truth beauty and worth of the Treasure.

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My son, Bryson, has no concept of danger. No one has told him that certain things that he wants to do might be impossible for him. No one has told him that the risk is too great. He has no idea what fear is. Obstacles mean nothing to him. He looks at a toy, or some other object and in his mind, sets a goal. He wants to acquire that object, usually the remote or my cell phone. He goes for it. There are no pie charts, there are no graphs or some Powerpoint presentation that calculates the risk. He will push himself to whatever limit is necessary for him to get what he wants. It doesn’t matter if he falls down, bumps his head, has obstacles in his path. He sees what he wants and he is going after it no matter what it takes.

We should be as bold. Crippling fear has no place in the life of a disciple. What is it about living the life that Christ has called us to live that makes us over complicate what he says?

Fear cripples progress. We fail to achieve what God wants to use us to accomplish because we listen to people who tell us that it is impossible or that it doesn’t make sense. We are not to listen to the wisdom of man but to focus intently on God.

God has not given us a spirit of fear. If we trust God to lead us in some areas of our life, why not trust him with all of our life? It is time for us to give up control and give it all over to God. It is time for us to risk looking stupid and foolish. Risk being called names. Risk making mistakes. Risk it all for the sake of the gospel.

God, give us the boldness and confidence to follow you in complete obedience. Help us to risk being called names and looking stupid because following you and treasuring you is more important. Help us to never be too comfortable but to risk it all for the sake of the gospel. Amen.